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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (6 September) . . Page.. 2887 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Our own July 1997 disaster is not even halfway through the process, and we have already had to extend the provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Dangerous Goods Act once before. The bungled implosion occurred on 13 July 1997, the coronial inquiry continued until the coroner reported his findings on 4 November 1999, over two years later.

Following from that report charges have now been laid, but they will not progress until March next year. Like many Canberrans, I followed the coronial inquiry with interest, and sought to give the coroner assistance where I could, as members might remember, in assisting to find the missing Walker diaries. I have studied the coroner's recommendations and I am happy to have played a part in the implementation of his recommendations about the establishment of an independent occupational health and safety commissioner.

In the Assembly I have exposed and highlighted the problems of political interference with occupational health and safety inspectors, although it is clear that the full detail of this was not considered by the coroner in his recommendations. The coroner did not consider aspects of political interference that have occurred other than those associated directly with the hospital implosion, and could not have formed a view about those matters without having done so.

I suppose I have to take some responsibility for that, because I did not bring it to his attention, but that is history and there is wisdom in hindsight. There was a great deal of political interference in the occupational health and safety area of government administration.

I am as disappointed today as I was last year, when I first extended this provision, that the ACT's chief law officer, the Attorney-General, has failed to act to ensure that the valid laws of the territory are maintained and can be applied in the way in which they were intended when they were passed by this Assembly. We heard a lot of opposition last year but, in spite of the looming expiry of the extension passed by the Assembly last year, nothing has been proposed by the government in relation to the Occupational Health and Safety Act or the Dangerous Goods Act.

Let me explain what the amendment to the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1989 does. It replaces the amendment inserted last year-and the same applies in relation to the Dangerous Goods Amendment Bill 2000-which extended the period during which charges could be laid under each of the acts to one year after the handing down of a report of a coronial inquiry.

The amendments I introduce today replace these clauses with clauses that extend that period to three years. Wisdom in hindsight would indicate that perhaps this should have been the case last year. We should have thought, "This could last for three years," but nobody imagined that it would take longer than one year for these matters to be dealt with by other courts.

This recognises that the current criminal case will not get under way until next March and allows time for the finalisation of that case and the consideration of any other charges that might arise, one hopes. It has to be remembered that, under section 29 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, charges may be laid on the person deemed to be in

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